Yahoo Founder Donates $75-Million to Stanford U.; Other New Gifts

Eight institutions have received big gifts:

• Jerry Yang, co-founder and a director of the Internet search engine Yahoo, in Sunnyvale, Calif., and his wife, Akiko Yamazaki, have pledged $75-million to Stanford University, in California. The donors asked that $50-million be used build the Environment and Energy Building, which will house the Woods Institute for the Environment, the department of civil and environmental engineering, and several interdisciplinary environmental-research programs. Of the remainder, $5-million will help build a Learning and Knowledge Center at the School of Medicine, and the final $20-million is still unallocated. Mr. Yang received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford in electrical engineering in 1990. Ms. Yamazaki graduated from Stanford in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering.
• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a pledge of $50-million from Dennis Gillings, chairman of Quintiles Transnational Corporation, a research-consulting firm for health-care and pharmaceutical companies in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and his wife, Joan, to support faculty and student research and academic programs at the School of Public Health. Mr. Gillings previously taught biostatistics at the School of Public Health, and Ms. Gillings previously worked as a staff member there.
• Lorry I. Lokey, founder and chairman emeritus of Business Wire, a news service in San Francisco acquired last year by Berkshire Hathaway, has pledged $33-million to Stanford School of Medicine, in California, to help build the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Mr. Lokey graduated from Stanford in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
• The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, in St. Louis, has received $25-million from Jack Taylor, founder of Enterprise Rent-a-Car, in St. Louis, and his wife, Susan, to establish the Enterprise Rent-a-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels, where a team of researchers will study sustainable energy sources. In 2005, the Taylors gave the plant-science center $10-million for its endowment campaign.
• Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge, has received a pledge of $25-million from Emmet Stephenson, founder and president of Stephenson and Company, a private investment company in Denver, and his wife, Toni. The donors asked that $15-million go to the E.J. Ourso College of Business to establish the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute and to support the Entrepreneurship Institute. The university’s School of Veterinary Medicine will receive $1-million to support research and fund-raising efforts. The remaining $9-million is still unallocated.
• The University of Wyoming, in Laramie, has received $16-million from the sale of a 160-acre ranch bequeathed by Clara Toppan, a certified public accountant who died in 2001. The proceeds will support the university’s rare-books library and endow scholarships for undergraduate accounting students and student athletes. Mrs. Toppan, whose ranch was located near the Grand Teton National Park, in Wilson, Wyo., graduated in 1931 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting.
• The University of Oklahoma, in Norman, has received a pledge of $15-million from Charles Stephenson, co-founder and former chairman of Vintage Petroleum, an energy company in Tulsa, and his wife, Peggy, executive director of the Stephenson Family Foundation, to help build the Life Sciences Research Center. In 2002, the couple gave the university $6-million to help build its Research and Technology Center. Mr. Stephenson graduated from the university in 1959 with a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering.
• The Valparaiso Family YMCA, in Indiana, has received a pledge valued at $10-million from Rick Urschel, vice president of operations at Urschel Laboratories, in Valparaiso, and his family, to help build a new facility. The Urschels’ pledge includes $7.5-million in cash and 12 acres of land and site-development work worth $2.5-million.
• H.F. (Gerry) Lenfest, founder of Lenfest Communications, in Wilmington, Del., and chair of the Lenfest Foundation, in West Conshohocken, Pa., and his wife, Marguerite, have pledged $10-million to Wilson College, in Chambersburg, Pa., to help build new science facilities. Ms. Lenfest graduated from the college in 1955 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. The couple have previously given a total of $17.8-million to the college.

Other recent gifts:

Amherst College (Mass.): $6-million pledge from Arthur W. Koenig, a retired steel-mill coordinator at Duferco, a steel-trade company, based in Rome, to support scholarships for poor students from Africa and Latin America. Mr. Koenig graduated from the university in 1966 with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

Iowa State U. (Ames): $1.5-million pledge from Long V. Nguyen, founder and chief executive officer of Pragmatics, an information-technology company in McLean, Va., and his wife, Kimmy, to endow a professorship in software engineering. Mr. Nguyen received a doctorate in computer science from the university in 1975.

Jewish Family & Career Services (Atlanta): $1-million from anonymous donors to provide services for older adults and their families.

Monmouth College (Ill.): $5.5-million from David J. Byrnes, chief executive officer of Nelnet Business Solutions and Nelnet Enrollment Solutions, two divisions of an education-planning and finance company in Lincoln, Neb., and his wife, Elizabeth, to help build a new facility to house the science and business programs. Mr. Byrnes graduated from Monmouth College in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in biology.

Montclair State U. (N.J.): $8.25-million from the estate of Margaret and Herman Sokol to endow a science award for faculty researchers, a professorship in medicinal chemistry, and fellowships for chemistry doctoral candidates. Mr. Sokol, who died in 1985 at the age of 68, was a retired president of the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers, based in New York. Ms. Sokol, a former science and math teacher, died last year. The Sokols both graduated from Montclair State, then known as Montclair State Teachers College; he received a bachelor’s degree in science in 1937, and she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in science the following year.

North Carolina State U. (Raleigh): $3-million from Lonnie C. Poole Jr., founder of Waste Industries USA, in Raleigh, and his wife, Carol Lynn, to help build a new golf course. Mr. Pool graduated from the university in 1959 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering.

Northland College (Ashland, Wis.): $1.25-million from John H. Chapple, president of Hawkeye Investments, in Kirkland, Wash., and his family, to endow a professorship in business ethics and social responsibility.

Ohio State U. (Columbus): $5-million pledge from John Messmore, an entrepreneur who has invested in classic cars, real estate, restaurants, and self-storage companies, for cancer research.

Pressley Ridge (Pittsburgh): $1-million from the family of Benjamin R. Fisher Jr., who died in 2002 at the age of 50, to support future needs of this organization that provides education, foster-care services, and treatment to troubled children and their families. Mr. Fisher’s mother, Lilian, his two sisters, Peggy and Christine, and his widow, Linda, have made the gift in honor of the late Mr. Fisher, who was vice president of corporate marketing and communications at PPG Industries, an industrial manufacturing company headquartered in Pittsburgh.

Purdue U., College of Engineering (West Lafayette, Ind.): $2.5-million planned estate gift from Bob Shadley, a retired Army major general and senior vice president for force protection at Alliant Techsystems, a weapons and space-systems company in Plymouth, Minn., and his wife, Ellie, to endow a professorship and undergraduate scholarships. Mr. Shadley received a bachelor’s degree in 1965 and master’s degree in 1966 from Purdue. The College of Engineering also received two gifts of $1.5-million: one donated anonymously to endow a professorship in mechanical engineering, and the other from Robert Fenwick, retired chairman of On Command Video, a video-subscription and information-systems provider in Santa Clara, Calif., and his wife, Janet, to support the Seng-Liang Wang Hall of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Mr. Fenwick graduated from Purdue in 1958 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. In addition, the engineering college has received $1-million from Michael and Elaine Thiele to help build an addition to the college’s School of Mechanical Engineering. Mr. Thiele, who graduated from the university in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, is a retired vice president at the Bechtel Group, an engineering and construction company in San Francisco.

Roosevelt U. (Chicago): $1-million from Irwin Helford, former president of Viking Office Products, a direct-mail retailer in Torrance, Calif., that merged with Office Depot in 1998, and his family, to create a Ph.D. program and professorship in industrial-organizational psychology. Mr. Helford studied marketing at Roosevelt from 1950 until 1952, when he entered the Navy.

Southern California College of Optometry (Fullerton): $2-million planned estate gift from Carling Huntington Childs, founder of CVC Audio Video Supply Company, a cassette and computer-disk manufacturer in Fullerton, to support the Family Eye Care Center.

Southern Illinois U. at Carbondale: $1-million from Herbert Shear, chief executive officer of Genco Distribution System, a third-party logistics company in Pittsburgh, and his wife, Barbara, to support the College of Business and Administration. Half of the gift is to be used at the business-school dean’s discretion; the Shears will help the dean determine how the business college uses the remaining $500,000. Mr. Shear graduated from the university in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing.

St. Alcuin Montessori School (Dallas): $2.5-million from the families of Sam and Charles Wyly for its capital campaign. The two men, who are brothers, are entrepreneurs based in Dallas.

St. Lawrence U. (Canton, N.Y.): $1-million from Sarah E. Johnson Redlich to equip the new Hall of Science. Ms. Redlich’s husband, Christopher, is the chairman of the Marine Terminal Corporation, a company that manages stevedores and terminals, in Oakland, Calif. Ms. Redlich graduated from St. Lawrence in 1982 with a bachelor’s degree in biology.

Strathmore Hall Foundation (North Bethesda, Md.): $1-million from Jim and Carol Trawick, founders of Trawick & Associates, an information-technology company in Bethesda, Md., that they recently sold to Veritas Capital, in New York. The gift will support music- and arts-education programs.

Trinity College (Hartford, Conn.): $2.5-million challenge gift from Mitchell M. Merin, a retired managing director at Morgan Stanley, in New York, to endow scholarships for students from Hartford. Mr. Merin graduated from Trinity in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in economics.

U. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (Little Rock): $4-million from Doyle and Josephine Raye Rogers, their daughter and son-in-law, Barbara and Paul Hoover, and their son and daughter-in-law, Doyle Jr. (Rog) and Carolyn Rogers. The gift will help build a lobby for a new facility and support the expansion of the Arkansas Cancer Research Center. Doyle Rogers is chairman of the Doyle Rogers Company, a commercial real-estate firm based in Little Rock.

U. of California at Los Angeles: $1-million from John McDonald, retired chief executive officer of Mullikin Medical Enterprises, a medical-management firm in Long Beach, Calif., and his partner, Rob Wright, a realtor in Los Angeles, to endow a professorship in sexual-orientation law at the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law & Public Policy.

U. of Cincinnati Academic Health Center: $1-million from Ward Bullock, an emeritus professor of medicine at the medical college, to endow research and education at its infectious-diseases division. Dr. Bullock formerly served as director of this department.

U. of Connecticut (Storrs): $ 2-million from Maurice Farber, a retired psychology professor at the university, to endow scholarships for needy students and graduate fellowships in psychology. Mr. Farber retired in 1977 after 29 years of teaching at U. of Connecticut.

U. of Nevada at Reno: $3.3-million bequest from the estate of Ann Kirkwood to endow scholarships for nursing students. Ms. Kirkwood, who died last year at age 85, studied at the university from 1939 to 1941.

U. of Oregon (Eugene): $1-million matching gift from Gilbert Schnitzer, founder of Schnitzer Investment Corporation, in Portland, Ore., and his wife, Thelma, to support the expansion and renovation of the university’s MarAbel B. Frohnmayer Music Building. The Schnitzers both graduated from the university in 1940; he received a bachelor’s degree in business, and she received her degree in music.

U. of Pennsylvania, School of Veterinary Medicine (Philadelphia): $3-million from Roy and Gretchen Jackson, who breed and raise thoroughbred horses at Lael Stables, in West Grove, Pa., to endow a professorship in equine-disease research. The Jacksons owned Barbaro, who won the 2006 Kentucky Derby, but broke his leg two weeks later; he was euthanized in January.

U. of Rhode Island (Kingston): $2.5-million from Tom Ryan, president of CVS, a pharmacy company in Woonsocket, R.I., and his wife, Cathy, for its College of Pharmacy. Mr. Ryan graduated in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy.

U. of Southern Indiana Foundation (Evansville): $5.1-million bequest from Henry W. Ruston, who owned a flower business in Evansville, to create an endowment for academic programs and to renovate the university’s basketball arena. Mr. Ruston died in 2005 at the age of 84.

U. of Texas Performing Arts Center (Austin): $2-million from David Honeycutt, founder of Texas American Resources, an independent-energy company in Austin, and his wife, Ann, to help renovate and restore Hogg Memorial Auditorium.

U. of Washington (Seattle): $3.5-million from Robert G. and Jean A. Reid, former co-owners of Reid Sand & Gravel, in Lakeside, Wash., to endow a dean’s position in the School of Nursing; and $1.5-million from Marilyn and Bill Conner, co-owners of Conner Homes and Conner Development, based in Bellevue, Wash., to endow a professorship at the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine.

— Compiled by Anne W. Howard

To submit announcements of donations from individuals of $1-million or more, please send an e-mail message to gifts@philanthropy.com.